crs_reports: R49432

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R49432 Online Scam Centers in Southeast Asia: Background and U.S. Responses 2026-09-30T04:00:00Z 2026-10-03T05:24:08Z Active Reports Ben Dolven, William Piekos, Shelby B. Senger   In the past decade, cyber-enabled scam operations have proliferated across Southeast Asia, concentrated in Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, and Laos. People operating from scam centers target individuals for cyber-enabled financial fraud using, for example, promises of fake cryptocurrency investment opportunities or romantic overtures to elicit payment from victims around the world. Scam centers are operated by and beneficial to a range of actors in the region, with criminal organizations from the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) the most common operators of scam compounds, according to the United Nations. Scams have had a significant and growing impact both in the United States and globally, though their illicit nature and underreporting by victims make it difficult to accurately measure their reach. The Global Anti-Scam Alliances estimated global losses at $442 billion in 2025. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated Americans lost $17.7 billion to online fraud in 2025, and U.S. officials have estimated Americans have lost $12.5 billion to scam centers in Southeast Asia specifically. The scam ecosystem also has implications for other forms of criminality, and many of the individuals involved in perpetrating scams are victims of human trafficking. The United Nations estimated that the scam workforce included as many as 300,000 people from 66 countries in early 2025; INTERPOL estimated human trafficking victims forced to conduct online fraud came from 80 countries in late 2025. Approximately 90% of the individuals who facilitated human trafficking for scam center purposes were from Asia, according to INTERPOL. Congress has considered and may consider a range of legislative and oversight options to reduce the impact of these scams on Americans and strengthen the U.S. government’s response against scam centers in Southeast Asia. In the 119th Congress, some Members have introduced legislation seeking to mitigate the harms of scams on U.S. citizens, sanction and pursue scam perpetrators and beneficiaries, and encourage the executive branch to take additional actions against scam operations in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Legislation introduced in the 119th Congress includes the Dismantle Foreign Scam Syndicates Act (H.R. 5490) and the Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization Act (S. 2950). Congressional entities, including the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have held hearings with Administration officials and expert witnesses to assess executive branch actions and further inform congressional responses. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R49432/R49432.2.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R49432.html

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